


not expecting the world

by vlieger



Category: Whose Line Is It Anyway? RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlieger/pseuds/vlieger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>not the most romantic thing ever, but I'm still gifting it because without your prompt I probably wouldn't have written this.</p>
    </blockquote>





	not expecting the world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thepsychicclam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepsychicclam/gifts).



> not the most romantic thing ever, but I'm still gifting it because without your prompt I probably wouldn't have written this.

Waking up with a stranger and no memory of the night before wasn't a wholly foreign experience for Jeff. He was thirty-eight, he liked to drink and go out; it happened. 

Waking up next to Chip, however-- a very, very _naked_ Chip, if the slide of skin on skin as he shifted away was anything to go by-- was somewhat foreign. By which he meant entirely, utterly, terrifyingly. 

The thing was, he maybe had a bit of a thing for Chip. 

A thing he'd long since pushed to the back of his mind in favour of shows buzzing with the fission of their chemistry and post-show drinks with the easy lulled company of Chip and the other guys. The odd weekend meal-- Saturday dinner or Sunday lunch-- at Chip's place, splitting his time between the kids and the adults because at thirty-eight he was the baby of the bunch and the time-sharing fell to him. 

So, the thing was not a _thing_ , as far as Jeff was concerned. 

Which made the whole waking up naked next to Chip with no memory of the night before more than somewhat disconcerting. 

Also way, way too much to think about then, with a headache stretching across his forehead, a thick, too-dry mouth and acid burning a path from his stomach up to his throat. 

Chip groaned and rolled onto his back as Jeff leaned over the side of the bed to pull on some boxers. 

Jeff turned to watch him blink painfully at the light, glance at Jeff, groan again and roll to press his face into the pillows once more. 

"Morning," said Jeff with about a gallon of false cheerfulness. He winced. He liked to think he was a better actor than that.

"Could you close the blinds, please?" said Chip, bringing his arms up around his head. 

"Really?" said Jeff. "We’re going with the blinds?"

"As opposed to?"

"Well," said Jeff. "I'm naked. Are you naked?" He knew Chip was naked. It just seemed impolite to say so. Chip was weird about things like that. 

"Yeah, I'm naked," said Chip. He seemed supremely unconcerned, which was concerning. 

"…Do you know why we're naked?" said Jeff. It didn't come out as blasé as he would have liked. 

"Sure," said Chip. 

"Care to share?" Jeff raised an eyebrow at the slice of sunlight carving a rather appealing ellipse across Chip's shoulderblade. 

"Jonathan," said Chip. 

"Jonathan," echoed Jeff. 

Chip shifted one shoulder in pale imitation of a shrug. "He thought it would be funny, I don't know. You were too drunk and I was too tired, plus it got him out of the room faster, so. Here we are."

Jeff stared. "I need a drink," he said, standing.

"It's 8am," said Chip, half-despairing, half-chastising into his pillow. 

"I'll put it in my coffee," said Jeff dismissively, looking around the room. 

Chip made an inarticulate sound and resettled himself.

"But wait," said Jeff, pausing with one hand on the minibar, "Why would Jonathan orchestrate this if he wasn't here to see the outcome?"

"Morning, gentlemen," said Jonathan in a ridiculous British accent and wearing an even more ridiculous expression, stepping grandly through the door. 

"Okay," said Jeff, pressing at his temples, "You were waiting by the door, right?"

"Duh," said Jonathan, rolling his eyes. 

"Great," said Jeff dryly, opening the minibar with renewed vigour. 

"Jonathan," said Chip, rolling onto his side, "Make sure there's nothing in his coffee but _coffee_. And for the love of God, will someone please close the blinds."

"Blinds I can do," said Jonathan, bounding over to bathe the room in blessed shadow, "But keeping Jeff away from the minibar is a job for professionals."

Chip sighed and heaved himself out of bed, clutching a sheet around his waist. "Jeff," he said, snatching the tiny bottle of scotch away after only a mouthful. 

"Oh, come on," said Jeff, watching Chip eye the bottle contemplatively and then take a swig of his own.

Chip pointed at him with the bottle. "Coffee. You had enough last night."

Jeff widened his eyes. "Banana daiquiri? It's practically a smoothie."

Chip eyed him sternly. It probably wasn't quite as effective as he wanted it to be; his hair was kind of mussed and there were pillow creases laddered all along his left cheek. 

Jeff stared back with his best beseeching expression. He'd been told it was a good one on him. 

Jonathan cleared his throat. "Uh, Chip?" he said. "Your sheet."

"Jesus," said Chip, breaking eye-contact and fumbling to re-tighten the sheet.

Jeff snorted and took the opportunity to snag the bottle back from his grasp. 

 

Ten minutes and an additional mini-bottle of Jack later, Jeff holed himself up in the shower to the sound of Chip heading back to his room and herding Jonathan out with him. 

He was pleasantly dizzy and the whole thing didn't seem quite so worrying as it had earlier, but still. 

It was Chip and another stupid thing notched up, and as a general rule he tried not to count the things he did just to draw out Chip's fond, indulgent smile. It might not be a _thing_ inasmuch as he didn't let it fuck up their wider dynamic and certainly not the group, but it was still there, and there were some things Jeff just couldn't help, that he didn't even notice until he played them back after.

It had the capacity to terrify him, all the touches to rile up the audience, all the bruises caressing the bones in his knees from throwing himself about the stage, all the one too many drinks just for the particularly dumb things he didn't say sober and still made Chip laugh, just for the way Chip would fit a steady arm around his waist as they rode the elevator back up to their rooms. 

He didn't like being terrified. Even the idea of it-- he was cool and scathing and perfectly controlled even when he wasn't. 

Chip and that whole thing was something else. 

It was an altogether different kind of adrenaline to the one he savoured when he was on stage.

Chip would probably like that. He was good at talking about feelings. So was Jeff, when those feelings were okay. 

This wasn't quite so okay. 

 

Jonathan looked at him expectantly after the show that night. Jeff took a minute to think, because it wasn't like he couldn't go for a drink-- it was rarely he really, _really_ couldn't-- and the adrenaline was nipping away at his insides, but he thought maybe a quiet scotch or two would settle it, a night away from the booze and the noise, the words tripping over the edge of his tongue and _Chip_. 

He shook his head and stepped out one of the service entrances to where Greg was already clicking a smoke to life. Jonathan followed him, and Chip a moment later. 

"Fans, then hotel for me," said Jeff, helping himself to the Marlboros and lighter in Greg's pocket. 

"Not celebrating tonight, gentlemen?" said Greg. 

"Oh, I'm celebrating," said Jeff. "But no one's invited." He thought he felt Chip glancing at him. He breathed in a lungful of smoke and shook it off on an exhale. 

"I'm turning in early," said Chip. "Jonathan?"

Jonathan shrugged. "I'm ready to party hard," he said through a yawn. 

Greg raised an eyebrow. "Papa's disappointed, kids," he said. 

Jeff laughed. "I'll make it up to you tomorrow."

"You'd better," said Greg. He shook his head and dropped his cigarette butt, crushing it beneath the heel of his shoe. "I'll be all hopped-up on too much sleep."

He grinned and stepped forward to meet the first threads of fans winding around the back of the hotel, giving Jeff time to finish off the last few drags of his cigarette. 

Chip stepped a little closer into his side, bumping his shoulder in a whisper of suit jackets. "Quiet one, really?" he said. 

Jeff shrugged. "I have a book I want to finish," he said. 

Chip's eyes crinkled all the way into the corners when he smiled. 

 

His hotel room was humming with the soft sounds of a close but muted Vegas when Jeff settled down with his newly-acquired 1936 edition of _Captain Courageous_ and an obnoxiously expensive but gratifyingly amber room-service scotch. He was three and a half pages in when Chip started messing around on his ukulele in the room next door. 

Jeff smirked down at the page and gave it thirty seconds before he pounded his fist against the wall and shouted, terrible southern accent and all, "Paw, turn that gosh-darn racket down!"

The ukulele didn't falter as Chip called back, matching him inflection for inflection, "Don't you be tellin' me to turn no racket down, sonny Jim!"

Jeff shook his head. "It's Jeff!" he shouted with a grin. 

The ukulele stopped and he pictured Chip rolling his eyes as he turned back to his book.

The silence continued long enough that Jeff settled into his book again, still half expecting something. 

Chip started up again eventually, of course, because this was a night in and Jeff always read his books and Chip always played his ukulele, but it was quiet this time, long familiar chords spilling into the next. Jeff stopped reading even though he didn't have to. It was actually pretty nice, the kind of stuff meant for lazy off-road nights and listening half-asleep through hotel walls. 

"You know how I hate having feelings," said Jeff, just loud enough that Chip would hear. 

He heard something that sounded like Chip's quiet chuckle over the continued thrum of ukulele strings, and then Chip sang, "Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through."

Jeff snorted a laugh and let his head roll back against the wall. 

It should have sounded stupid, the ukulele and Chip's voice muffled through the wall, that song, but instead it just fit, here in Vegas among the casinos and neon lights-- one thousand, nine-hundred and sixty-one miles from Georgia. He closed his eyes as Chip crooned, "Other arms reach out to me, other eyes smile tenderly, still in peaceful dreams I see, the road leads back to you."

Jeff blamed his second really damn good scotch and Chip's stupid soft voice for the way he fell asleep in his rumpled half-shed suit with the book on his lap and his head pressed at an odd angle to the wall. 

 

"I had fifty-three new year's resolutions," said Jeff the next afternoon. There was no show that night. "It's now August. Do you know how many of them I've accomplished?"

"None?" said Chip absently. 

"No," said Jeff. "I'm genuinely asking, I don't know."

Chip looked up at him, frowning. "Well, what were they?"

"I was hoping you could help me remember," said Jeff. "I'm pretty sure I've kept at least half of them, but it doesn't count if you don't remember they were new year's resolutions. I guess I could retrospectively make them up. Who'd know, right? Inexplicably winning at the craps table in Vegas while unconscious, tick."

Chip sighed. Something almost like a smile twitched about the corners of his mouth. "I think I remember something about…horses?"

"Horses!" Jeff snapped his fingers. "I was going to learn to ride. I haven't done it though, so that doesn't help. But I'd make a great cowboy, right?"

Chip snorted. "You're the exact opposite of a cowboy, you skinny, overeducated, suit-wearing narcissist."

Jeff raised an eyebrow. "Charles. I'm impressed. And a little turned-on."

Chip shook his head, dimples creasing his cheeks. "You're an idiot."

"You could teach me to be a proper cowboy," said Jeff thoughtfully. 

"You know I'm not actually from Texas," said Chip in his best southern I'm-from-Georgia accent.

"I know, you're from Pittsburgh," said Jeff. 

"Damn it," said Chip, laughing. 

"Great." Jeff sprang to his feet. "Come to the bar with me."

"Seriously?" Chip raised his eyebrows, but he was still smiling so Jeff figured he wasn't in too much trouble. "That was you buttering me up to be your wingman?"

"No," said Jeff. "I just want you to come get a drink with me. No manning my wings required."

"Well, in that case," said Chip, standing and bumping Jeff with his shoulder on the way to the door. 

 

Chip ordered their first drinks before Jeff even slid into his seat. 

"Whoa, slow down, soldier," he said, grinning and undoing the button on his jacket. "How do you even know I like whiskey sours?"

Chip raised an eyebrow and pushed Jeff's drink towards him. "It's alcohol," he said. 

"Shut up," said Jeff. "I'm not a teenage girl."

Chip tilted his head. "Debatable," he said, laughing. 

"Well, I guess I've got the looks," said Jeff, fluttering his lashes over a sip of the whiskey sour. 

"Just drink," said Chip, rolling his eyes. "Something sweet to start."

"Isn't it something sweet to finish?" said Jeff. 

"No, that's aspirin," said Chip. 

"Right," said Jeff, licking sugar from the corner of his mouth. "Duh. Elementary, my dear Watson."

Chip shook his head, mouth quirked. "Esten."

"Hmm," said Jeff, sipping thoughtfully at his drink. "It sort of works."

"It totally works," said Chip.

Jeff smiled. "Yeah," he said. "Okay."

 

"Man, I want a steak," said Chip wistfully many, many drinks later.

"Hey," said Jeff, protesting with his glass raised. 

"Sorry," said Chip. "I mean tofu. I want a huge pile of delicious tofu."

Jeff laughed. "What we need," he said, "Is someplace there's a steak joint across the way from a vegetarian restaurant. Then we could sit by the windows and pine at each other across the street."

"I already pine for you, baby," said Chip, fluttering his lashes. 

Jeff elbowed him. "Too late, sister," he said. "You had me naked in my own bed and did nothing with it."

"I do bitterly regret it," said Chip, leaning in to press his mouth against Jeff's cheek.

Jeff blinked, turned his head toward Chip like he would if they were on stage, just til the very corners of their mouths touched. "You're drunker than usual," he said. 

"More drunk," corrected Chip. "And yes, I am."

Jeff was good at this part. He could probably get Chip into bed if he wanted. He wasn't moving away and Jeff could feel the smile mapping out the curves of his mouth; he was like this when they performed, dizzy and daring and just a little sharper than usual. Almost too indulgent to Jeff's every silent request, every waiting arc of his body.

Instead he said, after a long moment, "How about that steak? I'll split you, eat your salad."

Chip pulled back. He was still smiling, eyes bright and brilliant. "Sounds good, sugar."

Jeff signalled for another drink on their way out. It didn't feel at all overdone, as he tipped it back in one burning swallow and let Chip lead him outside with a warm, damp palm on his hip. 

 

It was kind of like déjà vu when Jeff woke with Chip beside him the next morning, only this time there were clothes and Jeff had a solid if occasionally watery memory of the night before. 

Chip was still asleep, on his front with his head buried in the pillows, arms out to either side and elbows crooked in the way Jeff was starting to think of as customary. 

Which was a strange thought in and of itself. 

Jeff settled on his back, hands crossed over his chest. 

The room was a lot darker than it had been last time; someone had had the presence of mind to draw the shades, or-- Jeff remembered, he hadn't opened them yesterday to begin with. 

The next time he glanced over Chip was awake, blinking at him from between the pillow and his hair. 

Jeff grinned. "We've really got to stop meeting like this."

Chip snorted. "I don't know," he said, "I'm just starting to get used to it."

"Yeah," said Jeff, laughing quietly. 

"Do I have to get up yet?" said Chip, pushing his face back into the pillows with a groan.

Jeff glanced at the beside clock. "T minus twelve hours til showtime," he said. "So no, not yet."

"I'm getting too old for this," said Chip, muffled. 

"Nonsense," said Jeff. "You just need more practice."

"That's the last thing I need," said Chip. "Way down on the list after a toothbrush, a shower, aspirin and about a ton of coffee."

"I can help you out with most of the above," said Jeff. He tilted his head, smirking. "Or all, if you're so inclined."

"Stop making fun of the old guy," said Chip.

Jeff considered saying, _I'm not_. Maybe he was still a little drunk. Instead he said, "Sorry."

Chip sighed and rolled onto his back. "Shut up," he said to the ceiling. His eyes were screwed shut but there was a smile playing about his mouth, dipping dimples into his cheeks. 

"You shut up," said Jeff, because it would probably make Chip laugh. 

Chip snorted, angling his head to slit his eyes open in Jeff's direction. "Hey," he said. "Thanks."

"What for?" said Jeff. 

Chip shifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "You paid for the steak," he said. 

"You remember that?" said Jeff. 

"Yeah," said Chip thoughtfully. "A little."

"The salad was actually pretty good," said Jeff. "We should go there again."

"Sure," said Chip. "If I make it through this."

"I'm making note of how you're totally not being a diva about it," said Jeff. "For posterity."

Chip's dimples reappeared again. "I'm going to have a shower," he said, sitting up. "Do you think you could make us some coffee? Or is that being too much of a diva?"

"No need for the attitude, girl," said Jeff affectedly, sniffing. 

Chip rolled his eyes, winced, and stood up to head to the bathroom. 

 

Jeff set the coffee on as the sound of Chip's shower started up. He'd felt worse but there was a sizeable headache pressing behind his temples nonetheless, and he felt pretty shitty for having done the right thing. Although in hindsight, who knew-- Chip was Chip after all, pressing close to him sober on and off stage, hugging him tight in front of his family. 

Sure Jeff could've gotten him into bed, drunk as he was, but that was pretty fucking selfish even for him. 

Chip's dimples evening out his headache lines the morning after nothing happened was, in the end, infinitely better than his guilt if something did. 

Jeff switched the coffee machine off viciously and poured himself a cup, leaving it to keep hot for Chip in the carafe. 

The shower had shut off now and he leaned back against the counter to the muffled routine sounds of Chip rustling about the bathroom. 

His eyes were closed when the bathroom door opened, mug pressed warm to the slope of his jaw. It was nice, the heat, the sounds; easy and familiar like days off at home.

"You're my favourite," said Chip, pushing in beside Jeff to get to the coffee. 

"Really?" said Jeff, slitting his eyes open and glancing at Chip. "You like better than Jonathan?"

Chip threw him a grin. "Don't say anything," he said. 

Jeff laughed. He would've gone back in for another sip of his coffee then too, except that Chip leaned in and kissed him. 

It was quick and dry, not unlike how he pressed his smiles to Jeff's cheek onstage, except this time it was on his mouth, and this time he pulled back only to lean in again; longer, wetter. 

Jeff blinked. 

Chip was warm and still damp from his shower and he was kissing Jeff stupidly softly, careful like he didn't want to jolt his aching head or project this moment too loudly. 

Like he didn't want to break anything. 

Jeff said, "What," even as he didn't pull away, because Chip was kissing him and, well. Chip was kissing him. 

"Just go with it," said Chip. "For now. Yeah?"

"Yeah," said Jeff. He could do that. This was Vegas, the city where luck was spectacular but never lasting. 

He was caught somewhere between hungover and drunk and exhausted and he wasn't stupid, Chip was kissing him here, now, and he wasn't stupid. He wasn't stupid.


End file.
